Talk:2017 United Kingdom general election/Archive 5

Archive 1

←

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Archive 6

Archive 7

Infobox consensus 2017

Overall consensus

United Kingdom general election, 2017

8 June 2017
All 650 seats in the House of Commons 326 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Leader Theresa May Jeremy Corbyn Nicola Sturgeon Party Conservative Labour SNP Leader since 11 July 2016 12 September 2015 14 November 2014 Leader's seat Maidenhead Islington North Not contesting Last election 330 seats, 36.9% 232 seats, 30.4% 56 seats, 4.7% Current seats 330 229 54 Seats needed 97 272   Leader Tim Farron Arlene Foster Paul Nuttall Party Liberal Democrats DUP UKIP Leader since 16 July 2015 17 December 2015 28 November 2016 Leader's seat Westmorland and Lonsdale Not contesting Contesting whatever constituency he runs in Last election 8 seats, 7.9% 8 seats, 0.6% 1 seat, 12.7% Current seats 9 8 0 Seats needed 317 318 326
Incumbent Prime Minister Theresa May Conservative

Well, I never knew there was such debate around election infoboxes. Given the support for the 5%/5 seats threshold, am I correct in saying that the six-party IE infobox shown here has the greatest consensus thus far? To those who want a more complete picture, note the wikilink to the Results breakdown article (which will have a legislative election infobox) in this infobox. Neegzistuoja (talk) 13:15, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Overall support: If the consensus is to include UKIP then fair enough, but just to clarify this would be against the convention of listing parties by numbers of seats? I'm personally fine with that because I'm of the view that the infobox is just a summary of significant results (i.e. not a full results scoreboard of every party that won a seat), and UKIP winning 10% of the vote is a significant result. From the same logic I see no reason whatsoever to include the DUP but I'm guessing the line-up will be finalised after the election. Nub Cake (talk) 14:38, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

To clarify, these 6 parties are the only ones with either 5+ seats currently or 5+% of the popular vote in the last election (UKIP). That appeared to be the consensus as far as I saw. Neegzistuoja (talk) 02:14, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Template:IE

Might I suggest that we use Template:Infobox election (with candidate photographs) for this article, and Template:Infobox legislative election for the results breakdown article that will eventually be created? This dual usage seemed to work well for the United Kingdom general election, 2015 and Results breakdown of the United Kingdom general election, 2015 articles respectively. Neegzistuoja (talk) 11:10, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I personally don't like Template:Infobox election because it implies votes are cast for those candidates. But overall I agree with this, let's stick to what all the previous articles are doing. Mkwia (talk) 11:16, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

• Support: I believe the initial consensus was to use the current Israel-style info box only in the run-up to the election since the political dynamics may change during that time. Now that the election's going to be held in June, it's clear there's not going to be any hung parliament and that the four main parliamentary parties are going to be the same as last time, namely Conservative, Labour, SNP and Liberal Democrat. I think the question is whether to have a three-party info box (Con, Lab, SNP) or a four-party box (Con, Lab, SNP and Lib Dem). Nub Cake (talk) 11:19, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

It might be difficult to justify including Lib Dem without including DUP since there's only one seat difference between them. For that reason, I think a three-party infobox would be better. Neegzistuoja (talk) 11:24, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

These arguments over who to include are partly why it's better to stick with the legislative election infobox and a simple rule of including every party that won a seat.

I disagree. I think consensus would be broadly reached on not including some frankly insignificant parties that win 1-2 seats each.

I looked through all European country election infoboxes some months ago. 31 include every party that won a seat. 16 have fewer parties in the infobox than won seats. 3 have more parties, i.e. including parties that won no seats.

The LibDems got 8% of the vote share last time. To exclude them would be odd, I suggest. Only 2 European country article infoboxes excluded a party with that high a vote share (Macedonia and Lithuania). Bondegezou (talk) 11:36, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

This is a key point. It's the electoral system's fault that parties get disproportionate amounts of seats. The info box should be ordered based on vote %. --NathanJLiu (talk) 21:10, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose: consensus to date has been to use the current Israel-style infobox before the election. I don't recall anyone saying it should only be for the run-up to the election. Neutrality is best preserved with the current infobox. Comments that there are four main Parliamentary parties is a London-centric point of view. The general election will be in Northern Ireland and Wales too. Bondegezou (talk) 11:21, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
• Support: I feel that this is much cleaner and follows the design of previous election articles. Even the elections in the 1700s have the infobox like this. Yes the israeli style of the infobox makes sense - especially when we consider that UKIP got 12% of the vote, and as you say the Lib Dems at 9%. Maybe extend this version to include Lib Dems and UKIP and perhaps that would cover the ground a bit better. Thunderstorm008 (talk) 11:41, 18 April 2017 (UTC)(edited at 11:45, 18 April 2017 (UTC))

I meant 8% for the lib Dems. Thunderstorm008 (talk) 11:45, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

• Support It is cleaner, provides for additional useful data and is consistent with previous election articles. Though I'd include Con, Lab, SNP (by virtue of seat count) as well as LDs and UKIP (by virtue of both votes won last time as well as opinion poll ratings). Maybe the Greens too. Nonetheless, I think that UKIP and the Greens could be dropped if that's needed due to their low seat count, but Con, Lab, SNP and LDs should definitely be in. Impru20 (talk) 11:42, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
• No election infobox has included a party with fewer seats while excluding a party with more seats. I think that is a very problematic suggestion. If you want UKIP or the Greens in the box, then I think you need to include all parties with more seats too.

I don't see what additional useful data the version with pictures provides. Meanwhile, it loses the useful data on all the other parties. Bondegezou (talk) 11:47, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

But that's the issue of following a "seat-only" policy for infoboxes, which I respect and apply myself for consistency but with which I broadly disagree. Do you mean that UKIP nationally with 13% was more insignificant than DUP with 0.6% just because the first won just one seat and the later eight seats? The UKIP surge ahead of the 2015 election had been widely commented in previous years, as well as its by-election results or even its 2014 European Parliament election win. Many people may look at the 2015 general election article just to check UKIP results, just to find out that it's not even in the infobox, while hardly anyone would care for DUP, which is a Northern Ireland party (where politics work in a very different way than in the rest of the UK). The infobox should be more based on notability and not just on seats. Sticking to ordering parties in the infobox just by seats without keeping in mind anything else may work most of the times, but sometimes the electoral system just gives twisted results that hamper its effectiveness and do not reflect the actual importance of some parties.

In any case, I already said that I've no issues at dropping UKIP and the Greens for this infobox (given that they're hardly going to have the same relevance than in 2015; and we'll have to see if UKIP is not wiped out entirely). So you may drop that point from my argument if needed. Only the LDs should be definitely included. Impru20 (talk) 11:57, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Since UKIP got 12% of the vote in 2015 I think that they should be included. What useful data? Is it not more useful to give an overview of the parties people might vote for or that have an influence in the election?Thunderstorm008 (talk) 11:55, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Next United Kingdom general election

Party Leader Current seats Conservative Theresa May Labour Jeremy Corbyn

• Comment: Two other possibilities for this article are to use Template:Infobox election at maximum capacity with nine parties (that would cover every party with more than 1 seat at the moment), or to use Template:Infobox legislative election with 75px images next to names in the party_leader parameter (see incomplete example). Neither of those are common approaches, but perhaps worth suggesting. Do you prefer either of those, Bondegezou? Neegzistuoja (talk) 11:50, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Here we go again. My prefrence is with Bondegezou's suggestion but I'm not sure that the consensus is there for that view unfortunately. Neegzstuoja's section suggestion of using Template:Infobox legislative election would also work.

If we were to go with the traditional UK election infobox, then perhaps a 5% vote OR 5 seats policy would work? As things stand we'd include Con-Lab-SNP-UKIP-Lib Dem-DUP and I'd be happy with that as a suggestion. I'd then suggest that we should also add any other party which regularly receives over 5% in polls OR projections of over 5 seats (by regularly, we could draw from polling aggregates). This would allow us to add Green/Plaid Cymru/Sinn Fein at a later stage if needed. Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 11:58, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

If you want pictures in the article, put pictures in the article. I don't personally feel the need to have pictures in the infobox: you just end up with a big, clunky infobox that looks bad on small screens. WP:INFOBOX is clear that infoboxes are meant to be petite things. Indeed, WP:INFOBOX seems to imply you should not have more than one image in one.

That said, given the choice, I think we should include as many parties that won seats as possible. That is what most European country election article infoboxes do and it helps preserve neutrality. Given the UK has so many parties, the legislative design is needed to include all of them, but if consensus swings back to the other design, then, yes, I'd include as many as possible. Northern Ireland matters: just because the London-based press tends to ignore Northern Ireland, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The general election is there too and could have very significant impact on what happens there next. Bondegezou (talk) 11:58, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, I actually understand MOS:INFOBOX very differently. It says: An infobox is a panel, usually in the top right of an article, next to the lead section (in the desktop view), or at the very top of an article (in mobile view), that summarizes key features of the page's subject. I hardly see a party winning 0.3% or 0.4% of the overall vote as a key feature of the page's subject. Elections are centered on the larger parties. No matter how painful this may sound to some, but that's what happens. Media mostly focuse on the larger parties, and most people won't come to an election article just to check for a tiny party in the infobox.

Other Wikipedias infoboxes are way more descriptive than ILE, being more in line with IE, also including pics for party leaders (check the Spanish, French, Italian and even Japanese Wikipedias). Also, IE has been in place for many years, so I highly doubt that it doesn't comply with MOS:INFOBOX. IE and ILE are just two different styles. With the difference that IE was created for being used generally, whereas ILE was created back on its day specifically for Israeli elections (based on that country's electoral dynamics) and is now intended to be imposed elsewhere (where election dynamics may be, and surely are, different). Impru20 (talk) 12:11, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

It is irrelevant that the legislative infobox was initially created for Israel. It has been used here and other places for years now, e.g. on pages for the Netherlands, Serbia and Montenegro. Bondegezou (talk) 12:19, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, but what I mean is that: Was it done as part of a community-wide consensus? Or just because people felt like doing it for each country, essentially turning it into a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS itself? Impru20 (talk) 12:21, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

With regards to Impru20's point about a party that won 0.4% or 0.5% of the vote: which vote would this be? Being that it is a constintuency-based first-past-the-post system, there is room for quite significant variance between popular election results and seats returned (for example, UKIP winning 12.6% of the vote in the 2015 election, but receiving 0.15% of the seats due to the distribution of their votes). This is one of the things that I feel the choice of infobox needs to take into account, alongside other features like its non-Presidential nature (i.e. party leaders are technically irrelevant to the outcome, despite being one of the main motives in people's voting choices), and the increasing regionality of UK voting patterns as exhibited by nationalist parties' support. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 13:27, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Popular results. UKIP was subject to much more media coverage and had way more notability than DUP or the SDLP. And UKIP also had much more relevance to the general election (which, I should remember, has a nationwide scope). It doesn't sound unrealistic to me that people may come to these articles searching for UKIP's results over those of DUP or the SDLP, no matter how the electoral system benefits regional-based parties over nationwide ones. Also, I hardly recall DUP and the SDLP being mentioned at all in opinion polling, other than specific polling for Northern Ireland, yet UKIP's impact in polling did in fact influence British politics. The FPTP does not change the influence of parties before or after the election, nor the impact of a 12.6% result which, under British stardards, is a fairly high result for a third party.

I'm quite aware this is not a presidential election, yet we can't just argue that it doesn't exhibit presidential-like features. General elections are meant to elect a new PM, so we can't say that PM candidates are irrelevant (the very fact that they are "one of the main motives in people's voting choices" is because people vote on "who's going to be their next PM"). Also, if leaders were really "technically irrelevant", I wonder why debates were held between them or why the issue of leaders' debates has been on the rise in recent elections. I'm sure party leaders are more than just "technically irrelevant". ILE fails to reflect issues that people such as you or Bondegezou widely acknowledge that do exist. And the fact that the current setting of IE does not work the way it should is not because the infobox template is wrongly-designed (in fact in provides for a lot of choices and possibilities), but because of the current practice of sorting parties based only on the number of seats they win (I think seats should matter, but having them as the only criteria for inclusion is problematic at times).

Anyway, the point I wanted to bring up here was how ILE has been slowly been introduced for some countries against WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, despite now WP:LOCALCONSENSUS being used in this discussion to argue against the 5%/5 seats proposal. I don't know if there is consensus for now for such a proposal, but I'm quite sure that ILE is not part of a community-wide consensus which, in fact, previously favoured the use of IE nearly unanimously. Impru20 (talk) 14:03, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose per Bondegezou. I agree about the need for caution against London bias; If anything, the fact that the press exhibits such a London bias is actually a stronger reason for Wikipedia to guard against such a bias. I would agree with usage of the legislative infobox to maximise the number of relevant parties that are listed. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 12:07, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

• SUPPORT % vote OR 5 seats - definitely agree with that if we go with the traditional option, which I do believe we should do. This sounds like a good policy. Thunderstorm008 (talk) 12:08, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I think it would be bad practice to make up WP:LOCALCONSENSUS like this by creating an arbitrary rule. That is not how Wikipedia should work. To do that would be to break with practice, which has always been to include parties in seat order: i.e., not to include a party with fewer seats while excluding a party with more seats. Bondegezou (talk) 12:12, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, practice has also been to use IE, and (at least for UK elections), not to include every party winning seats. And I don't know if users have actually discussed the issue for other countries where all parties are shown in the infobox, or at least in most of them. WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is applied only if there's a wider community consensus that is to be overriden. But frankly, and sorry if I sound rude, but election infoboxes are an actual mess throughout Wikipedia. There's not an actual Wikipedia-wide consensus on how to deal with election infoboxes, and everyone does whatever they want for each country's elections (and even among these, you can find some differences for the same country). I think that if we discuss the issue throughly and come up to the conclusion that a specific % or seat threshold is to be included, that could be slowly implemented for other articles and, eventually, become a true community-wide consensus. Impru20 (talk) 12:19, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

• Agree with Impru20 - Not WP:LOCALCONSENSUS yet anyway, there hasn't been enough time for that. Also see WP:CCC - we can change the consensus. This is a good compromise by Super Nintendo Chalmers, and this ensures that the parties with less seats but more votes get a place. This is much fairer and more impartial in my view Thunderstorm008 (talk) 12:22, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I think many people have different views on why we have an infobox in the first place. The whole point, in my view, is that it provides a summary of the major results, i.e. the ones that matter when it comes to determining who is the government and who are the main opposition in the next parliament. That's why there's no need to include parties that win a few seats using a huge Isreali-style box. We provide a detailed results table in the 'results section' in the article for this exact reason. It's not about 'how much' information the infobox has, but rather the importance of the information. Therefore if we were to agree on a general rule on whether or not to include a party in the infobox, I would suggest a 'minimum 20 seats' policy. Nub Cake (talk) 12:10, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

• Support 5% OR 5 seats with IE Seem like decent thresholds to me and a fine compromise solution, as per Super Nintendo Chalmers and Thunderstorm008. Impru20 (talk) 12:13, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

An infobox should summarise the election results, and the simple way of doing that is a compact list of parties and seats won. Talking of "major results" is imposing an editorial bias of which results matter: in Northern Ireland, or in Scotland, it doesn't matter who got more than 20 seats, it matters how many seats Sinn Fein got, how many the DUP got, how many the SNP got.

Everything in the infobox is perforce repeated in the article, as per WP:INFOBOX.

I remain strongly opposed to abritrary rules like "minimum 20 seats" or "5%/5 seats". They cause no end of problems. (Should it be revised after boundary changes?) Bondegezou (talk) 12:17, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

This isn't abritrary really is it? And let's cross the bridge about boundary changes when it happens, but that is unlikely to be until 2018, but who knows after this election. Thunderstorm008 (talk) 12:26, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps criteria should include a percentage of seats rather than a number? 5% of the popular vote or 5% of seats, for instance. That would be easier to apply to other countries' elections with differently sized houses. It would be 33 seats in this case, which does bump off the DUP... Maybe 5% of the popular vote or 1% of seats? Neegzistuoja (talk) 12:27, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, I'm not saying that parties should be excluded because of their regional origin. I say that a party winning 13% of the vote nationally is way more relevant than a party winning 0.6%, specially if sources back it up. The SNP, for example, won its place in the infobox by virtue of its impressing results in Scotland, but until that happened no one actually cared for their inclusion in the infobox. And now, as a result mainly of SNP results in 2015, we've seen discussions in the last years here wishing to change the traditional infobox for more messier, less-descriptive (in terms of votes, seats and such) ILE, as well as intending to give more prominence to regional-based parties than to national ones winning thirteen times as many votes and being subject to an intense media coverage. This is mainly a result of the practice of ordering parties by seats on the infobox, which I don't think was well-conveived back on its time (given that these kinds of situations of a party winning 13% of the vote and just 1 seat are very recent). And the maintainment of that practice now forces us to include every party if one argues for UKIP's inclusion. So no, I don't agree that including tiny parties in the infobox complies with WP:INFOBOX: there's already space for them in the "Results" section. The infobox should cover only the most notable parties and that's it. It should be as descriptive as possible without having to add every possible party into it. I acknowledge that we can't just cast-off regional parties just because of them being regional, but it doesn't sound logical to me either that they should be boosted into the infobox just because of it. We can't also forget that this, above everything else, is a "general" election, held nationwide. It took the SNP 81 years to obtain a result that was impressive enough to be acknowledged into the infobox, and until then no one cared about the tiny regional parties that won many seats but very small vote shares. I'm sure they are not so much important now to outplace a strong-performing (in vote terms) nationwide party.

This said, given that election infoboxes as we know it are surely bound to change (one way or the other), I don't know why the actual policy of sorting parties by seats is not the one actually discussed in the first place. Because that would solve a lot of the current issues without having to resort to tricky measures such as having to change the whole infobox system or the such. The 5% or 5 seats rule seems a decent shot at this, I believe. Impru20 (talk) 12:36, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

• Support 5% OR 5 seats with IE Seems like a great compromise, and fits in with precedent. CuriousCabbage (talk) 12:19, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

• Comment I feel like there are two related but still distinct votes going on here: one as to whether to use {{Infobox election}} or not, and one on what threshold we should have for inclusion of parties in any infobox. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 12:35, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I've gone through and refactored all votes or top-level comments to use bullets for clarity, as there were casting votes at various levels of indentation. I hope that this is alright with everyone. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 13:18, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

• The 5% or 5 seats rule is extremely unhelpful. Why on earth would we include parties that have won just 5 out of 650 seats in what is supposed to be a summary of the full results? Nub Cake (talk) 14:00, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Support 5% or 5 seats rule – it makes sense and seems to place the right amount of emphasis on all parties. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 14:08, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

5% of the vote or 5 PERCENT of the seats is a better criteria far more reflective of how the election is generally covered. Including the DUP in the top six parties contesting the election looks like a massive anomaly when they don't contest any seats against the major parties and win purely on local issues on a very small total vote compared with other parties not included in the infobox. That said, I also like the idea of a more complete, image-free infobox similar to the legislature one, provided it also includes vote totals to correct the anomaly of not including UKIP following Carswell leaving the party. This option accurately reflects the fact that regional parties will contest and win seats without inflating their influence on the overall election result, and also creates scope to include parties like the Greens and Plaid Cymru.

Yes, all for that, adding vote totals to the legislative infobox. We kinda said we'd do that ages back and it never happened. Bondegezou (talk) 14:57, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

• Support a 5% in polls or 5 current seats even though I would prefer a 3% polls/3 seat position. Ânes-pur-sàng (talk) 15:03, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

• Keep current infobox, but include UKIP under the 5% threshold &ndahs; for which there is already a consensus – as clearly to include all four NI parties but exclude the party with the third most votes overall in 2015 would be inappropriate.

  However inevitable the result seems, the infobox must be designed in the context of the two previous election results being a hung parliament and a very slim majority. It must also be designed to be as succinct as possible. The only way to accomodate both of those objectives is to keep the existing format and omit pictures. Once the results are known and final, adopting the 2015 format seems the correct approach (top four parties in terms of seats, with no regard to percentages), but our duty up until that time is to be unfailingly neutral to all those with a previously demonstrated realistic prospect of representation. StillWaitingForConnection (talk) 16:00, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I have no objection to adding UKIP to the current infobox as they did win a seat at the election (since lost through defection). Bondegezou (talk) 16:07, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

• Comment - A quick note on the 5 seats/5% idea, seeing as I prompted it: I don't see this as being a rule for all future elections, just one which nicely reflects the spread of British politics as of Spring 2017. We need flexibility - if (say) 6 centrist Labour MPs broke off and formed a new party tomorrow, I'd support listing them even though the party won no votes last time. If the Greens achieved several successive polls at 7%, I'd support adding them. There may be other circumstances, that we cannot yet imagine, that would require parties to be added. After the election, we would also have to revisit the situation to judge which parties to include: if UKIP collapse with no MPs and 4% of the vote, I'd argue for their inclusion to tell the story of an election.

In other words, I fully agree with arguments rejecting the idea that we're coming up with new permanent rules for British General Elections today. In the absence for a consensus to maintain the Israeli-style box (which I would prefer!) I think a 5/5 system provides a clear and workable option that could survive the next 6 weeks. --Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 20:09, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose: as per Bondegezou. Big pictures in the infobox might be suitable for presidential elections but not in this setting. In this election there are no TV debates scheduled. Listing the constituency a party leader is standing isn't also doesn't seem a good use of the available space. There are lots of parties that have some sort of claim around inclusion, and using a 5 seats/5% cutoff does seem to take these into account. Drchriswilliams (talk) 12:28, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
• Support: In addition to lacking the information per party that the usual infobox format provides (number and percentage of votes, for instance), the current infobox lacks essentially all the other information. It does not state the total number of seats up for election, the number need for a majority, the links to the outgoing members list, and opinion polls. An infobox is meant to summarise the key information in the article, and the current infobox does a miserable job of it. -Rrius (talk) 12:47, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment: I think everyone supports adding vote shares to the legislative election infobox. The total number of seats can be added easily. Neither suggested box has links to opinion polls, do they? More generally, infoboxes are not meant to be for links to other things (as per WP:INFOBOX). Bondegezou (talk) 13:07, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
    • Comment: Yeah, they actually do if you use that field. Check Spanish general election, 2016. Furthermore, WP:INFOBOX only says that infoboxes are not meant to be for links to sections within the article, not that they can't link to other things. Impru20 (talk) 14:42, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
• Comment - How about making the 5% / 5 seats rule to also include any party that is standing for over 5% of the seats, i.e. 33 seats. Any party standing for 33+ seats is a substantial party and would allow young or new parties to be shown in the info box. Ânes-pur-sàng (talk) 14:57, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
• Support: As I said with respect to the debate on the 2015 election, it is a matter of considerable importance that all the UK election articles should use the same infobox. Unless there were a consensus to change all of them (and I prefer the box with the pictures for other reasons too), it is unacceptable for any one election to be different.

As to what parties to include, I agree with Super Nintendo Chalmers that flexibility is to the point. I don't think there would be much point listing UKIP if they got even less of the vote than last time, though, but still got above 5%, since that would be inconsistent with the 2015 election. Rather, I think we should list Lab/Con/SNP, and include the Lib Dems only if (as in 2015) they get more seats than the other regional parties (i.e. the DUP or conceivably Plaid Cymri) - or we should use a threshold of 15% or 5 seats, or something, which would effectively match up with the situation at the 2015 election page. Dionysodorus (talk) 21:02, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Consensus before change

Neegzistuoja, I feel you were very premature to change the infobox just now. We are clearly still in the middle of a discussion. Multiple editors on both sides (or indeed more than 2 sides) have expressed views. I don't see anything close to consensus yet. As per WP:NORUSH, allow time for discussion. We have achieved consensus before, we can do so again. Bondegezou (talk) 13:49, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree, this disrespectful person absolutely made the wrong decision when there is clearly no consensus yet. They should be ashamed of themselves. Ajoutsizgeen (talk) 13:59, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Why would you have the Scottish Parliament, Northern Ireland Assembly & European Union Parliament in brackets, under Sturgeon, Foster & Nuttall? Their parties are running for seats in the UK Parliament 'only'. GoodDay (talk) 02:39, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

That's for the "Leader's seat" parameter. The seats of Sturgeon, Foster, and Nuttall are in these houses, not the House of Commons. Or does that make it look like their parties are only contesting seats in those separate houses? Hopefully the "All 650 seats in the House of Commons" line suggests otherwise. Neegzistuoja (talk) 06:45, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

WP:INFOBOX is clear that everything in the infobox should be in the article: the article should be able to stand alone without the infobox. But general election articles generally don't mention anything about the leaders' seats, because it's trivia. So this information should not be in the infobox.

It's just another example of how the 'picture' election infobox breaks WP:INFOBOX. See also its use of flag icons, against the manual of style. Bondegezou (talk) 08:12, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

I think you are seriously misinterpreting just about everything in that article. Nub Cake (talk) 13:21, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Hi Nub Cake, could you go into some detail there. What in particular do you feel I'm misinterpreting and how? Thanks. Bondegezou (talk) 14:30, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Use the rules from 2015 and earlier. What They had were pictures the candidates for PM in order of the number of seats in the old parliament. Then they were rearranged when the actual vote took place. AS to Sturgeon, Foster, and Nuttall, leave them out, and use the people who are running (standing?) in the national election. Arglebargle79 (talk) 20:56, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Recent consensus, and indeed what we did in 2015, was to keep the legislative election infobox before the election. We then changed it to the headshots version after an RfC and once the result was known. Bondegezou (talk) 21:05, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm just somewhat unsure as to why we'd allow the British page to break with the standard for every other major Westminster-style Parliamentary democracy (cf. Canada, Australia, South Africa), and in doing so pick something so ugly to boot. If clutter is a concern, I support the 5% rule, or whatever the limitation is, but over everything, replacing this horrid Israeli-style legislative election infobox should be the priority. CuriousCabbage (talk) 21:24, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Images vs inclusion

I'll be honest, I don't like the current layout of the infobox, given that we currently have images for the leaders of nine different parties. The infobox genuinely takes up half my screen on my laptop, and needs to be horizontally scrolled on my phone (as a newer Xperia, it has quite a large screen as well, so will be even more difficult for other mobile users). I feel that we need to have a consensus to either:

1. Include all of the parties above a threshold, but display no leader images, or;
2. Include a select number of the largest parties, and have images.

For comparison, United Kingdom general election, 2015 has the top four parties followed by a map of the final vote (which in the case of this article, could be a map of the incumbent MPs' parties), and while it still feels like it takes up a lot of room (I'm still unconvinced for several reasons of the need for images), it seems more manageable. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 23:54, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

My preference would be for:

1. Conservative (330)
2. Labour (232)
3. SNP (56)
4. Lib Dems (8)

On the basis that we should include parties that won BOTH:

1. 5% of the nationwide vote, and;
2. More than a single seat in Parliament

Those four are the only parties to qualify for the infobox under that criteria. UKIP hold 0 seats and only won 1 in 2015, the Greens won less than 5% and hold only 1 seat, and the DUP/Sinn Fein/SDLP/UUP/Plaid all won less than 1% of the UK-wide vote. I think this is a clear and transparent criteria.

Collectively the parties suggested for the infobox above hold 96% of the seats in Parliament - they are the major parties going into this election

Sidenote: I personally do favour images of the party leaders as that is in widespread usage in UK election articles, American election articles and European election articles. (See Germany/Spain/Ireland to pick some examples) FriendlyDataNerdV2 (talk) 00:11, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

To be honest, I'd be fine with just a rule of "top four parties by seats", rather than creating rules with awkward possible edge cases.

With regards to images; I'd argue that a lot of those examples are Presidential systems (with the exception of Spain and the UK). But I think the other issue I have is with the presentation of information beneath the leader's image in parliamentary systems, as it effectively switches to show in the order "leader, party, leader, leader, leader, party, party, party...", which to my eye is bad flow in presentation. I'll be addressing that with a proposal at the template, though, and then link it from here so that others can participate in the discussion there.

Nonetheless, Spanish general election, 2011 does show a fairly good example of six images used more reasonably. I think image sizing could perhaps be used more judiciously on this page. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 07:48, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

I entirely agree that the infobox with pictures is way too big. The legislative election infobox solves this problem. We have not reached any consensus yet, so I've changed the article back to the legislative infobox. Bondegezou (talk) 09:05, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

How do we move forward?

The reality is, as in 2015, there will be edit disputes over the infobox through to polling day. We've never found something that satisfied everyone. I do not see any consensus in the above, so I've been reverting the infobox to consensus before the election was called (legislative style). So what are the main areas of dispute, and how do we move forwards?

First big question is...

• Infobox with headshots vs. legislative style

If legislative style, I think we agree that a total seats should be added, and it would be nice to have a column for vote shares. Use of the legislative infobox with small pictures has also been suggested.

If we use the infobox with headshots, there's then the question of which parties to include. I've seen the following suggested above:

• Con, Lab, SNP
• Con, Lab, SNP, LD
• Con, Lab, SNP, LD, DUP
• Con, Lab, SNP, LD, DUP, omit some parties with more seats, UKIP
• Con, Lab, SNP, LD, DUP, omit some parties with more seats, Green, UKIP
• Con, Lab, SNP, LD, DUP, Sinn Féin, Plaid Cymru, SDLP, UUP

There are then minor issues over the use of a flag icon, listing leaders' seats, etc.

What I've done today, that maybe helps find a way forward, is to create tables in the main article listing the main parties with photos of their leaders, leaders' seats and all that stuff. If some editors want that in an infobox, then it should be in the article, as per WP:INFOBOX. I've made a start on those, but please do continue to expand them and make them prettier. Bondegezou (talk) 09:13, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

A few hours later... and the tables added to the main text have been gutted. If all that stuff about leaders' seats, when they became leader and how many seats a party needs to gain for a majority are not wanted the text, why do some people want them in an infobox? Bondegezou (talk) 11:59, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

I'd argue that actually there is consensus - from a quick, rough count, 12 people support using some form of infobox with headshots, and only 4 support retaining the legislative style. I think that's quite a broad consensus, actually, and despite the opposition to the infobox with headshots being particularly copious from some, in terms of a pure editorial 'vote', I think template IE should win the day here.CuriousCabbage (talk) 12:19, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for going through and counting. I note that 12 versus 4 is a vote, not a WP:consensus. I hope we can avoid coming to a vote (but if we have to, we have to).

My other problem with that count is that it's not 12 because I count at least 6 different suggestions for a headshot infobox, as listed above. Which one of those matters. Personally, I am vehemently opposed to the 4th and 5th in the list I gave: they go against all practice and, I feel, NPOV. I could live with some of the others, however. Bondegezou (talk) 12:39, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Maybe if the table was thoroughly thought and not made in a clumsy, hastily and rushed way, it could've been preserved as such. But you don't need to create an aberration that spans the whole width of the page and includes some info already found elsewhere in the article just to make a point (plus, it's curious that you added it arguing that (on your interpretation of WP:INFOBOX), the data shown in the infobox should be reflected elsewhere in the article, and then you went on to remove the infobox that, according to you, justified such a table in the first place). You're missing the whole point of IE here, and in order to try to preserve ILE, you're making some very restrictive interpretations of WP:INFOBOX which I can only disagree with. IE presents such information provided in a detailed and easily-accessible way. It's not adding information in whatever way just for the sake of it, and much less in such a way that would obviously make others to remove or rework it. Other countries use some tables to represent contesting candidates and parties, but anything like what you added. The stuff about leaders' seats, when they became leader and how many seats a party needs to gain for a majority don't need to be contained in a single same table in the article. The text in that very same section already provides some of that data (even with sources), so I don't know what's the point of repeating information all over the article again, again and again in sites other than the infobox (where this is justified as it's intended as a summary of key features). Impru20 (talk) 12:21, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

I did make those tables hastily. I presumed/hoped others would pitch in and refine them. I can see that Wikipedia editors like tables like that and, I suggest, it would be better formatting to pull that info out of a giant infobox and into a table in the text. It seemed to me a possible way forward: keep something that looks like the IE infobox, but don't have it actually as an infobox.

Can you be more specific about how you feel I am misinterpreting WP:INFOBOX? I realise IE is widely used, and has been for some years, but its use, it seems to me, clearly contradicts the manual of style. We end up with the largest infoboxes of any Wikipedia articles and this clearly has implications with small screen sizes. I know WP:IAR, but I do not see the manual of style as an optional extra here. We have an alternative infobox in ILE that does satisfy WP:INFOBOX and has been increasingly used, so it seems the sensible choice to me. Bondegezou (talk) 12:39, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, then you could wait for the discussion you opened here to ensue so as to how to best handle that issue. But making a table that it's impractical is not a better solution. By doing that you contradicted your very same arguments: if you pressed for ILE because, according to you, IE is "a giant infobox" that could have "screen size" issues... What's the point in having a much more giant and messy table in the middle of the article that is essentially a hastily-made copy-paste of the facts provided within IE, without the benefits IE brings and with all the downsides you claim against it? I mention, but don't discuss, your move of removing IE, given that it sounds reasonable that, if the discussion on such issue is still ongoing, the previous consensus version is kept in the meantime. But then, the table as it was made no sense at all. I run on a large screen size. I don't have any screen issues with IE, yet I did have with your table (so, imagine what'd happen with smaller screens). On WP:INFOBOX, for this specific case, I'd say that you're misinterpreting the point were it says that an infobox is intended "to summarize (and not supplant) key facts that appear in the article (an article should remain complete with its summary infobox ignored)". I don't see where it is stated that such key facts should appear in the article only within a table that aims to mirror the infobox structure.

The size of IE can be worked out through image sizes and proportions, so I don't think that's an issue. For Spanish elections I frequently crop leader's images so that the file's height is roughly 1.5x its width (I started doing this when I ran on a smaller screen size, and worked frankly well for me), and this usually helps spare some width. For most other elections, including British ones, users tend to add unedited pics, whatever their sizes are, so I understand this may cause more issues. Yet, other Wikipedias do indeed use large infoboxes for elections. The ones in the Spanish and French Wikipedias are also large (and are vertically-based against IE's design, which is horizontal, so you may not their widths), and they don't provide as much information as IE allows.

You're quite an experienced user in UK election articles. And you did not felt concerned on IE supposedly not complying with the MOS until relatively recently. So, if now you think that IE contradicts MOS, given how widely-used IE is throughout this Wikipedia, you should bring the issue at the proper place, which would be IE's template talk, the Elections and Referendums WikiProject or whatever, to seek consensus for a change on this. But obviously, because IE is so widely-used and has been for so much time, a change of a community-wide practice of using IE in most election articles (until the very controversial introduction of ILE for some) should not be sought for a single election in a specific country. Also, if IE was really non-compliant with MOS or the issues you argue it causes were so problematic, then people wouldn't still use it, or some sort of major change would have been seen already (and I don't say IE doesn't have imperfections. But I don't see the benefits of ILE either, or how it improves over IE). Impru20 (talk) 13:28, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Tables in texts work better than large infoboxes. They can be formatted in more adaptive ways, whereas the infobox has to be top right in an article. Having a table lower down protects the lede and TOC from being squeezed. WP:INFOBOX seems clear here: the infobox is meant to be a compact summary, not a comprehensive table, but the manual of style is fine with larger tables elsewhere.

With respect to WP:INFOBOX interpretation, you are right that the "key facts" do not have to appear "only within a table that aims to mirror the infobox structure". I have not advanced that argument. I boldly thought a table would be a good way to show a set of facts that some editors want in the article. If the tables I added weren't working, I'm fine with them being dumped or altered or whatever. I was just trying to find a new way forward. I am not wedded to them. They are not central to my views on what infobox to have. I am sorry that the tables offended you so and apologise.

There is a contrast between WP:INFOBOX and what has been common practice on many election article infoboxes. What the last few years on Wikipedia have taught me is that when there is a conflict between longstanding practices and core polices/guidelines, it is the latter that do and should win out. Election articles have the biggest infoboxes of any articles, as far as I can see. I think we should address that. I think we have an easy way of addressing that, which is to use ILE.

I have seen and am interested in some of the designs on the Spanish and French Wikipedias, as I said in the last big UK election infobox discussion a while back. I am very happy to discuss new approaches, away from the sterile IE vs ILE choice.

Various different infoboxes are used in various different election articles: I've seen IE, ILE, a national politics box, or nothing at all. ILE has been increasingly used of late, but I acknowledge it is in the minority. I quite agree that discussion at IE's template Talk or the Elections Project page would be useful. I have started a discussion at the Talk page for WP:INFOBOX. We're having the main discussion here because we had a consensus to use ILE here (yes, this was controversial, but after a huge amount of discussion, we did reach that consensus) and now some editors want a change here. Bondegezou (talk) 14:30, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

They may work better if done properly. But then, the purpose of an infobox and that of a table is not the same, and tables usually go further in-depth or focuse in a specific issue. Also, as you say, they're more adaptative. For these reasons, trying to have a table represent every bit of what an infobox aims to is not, in my opinion, a good idea. On WP:INFOBOX, our interpretation again differs: I actually see IE as a compact summary. I think this depends on what you understand by a "summary", which I understand as something that provides every bit of key information as most compact as possible. And in these terms, ILE fails to do this as it misses a lot of information. So I actually understand IE as the perfect compact summary.

I don't agree with the way you've handled the table issue, because it just looked like if you tried to use the table as an argument for your case against IE. You somehow concluded that, as a result of the edits on the table, "If all that stuff (...) are not wanted the text, why do some people want them in an infobox", hinting similar ideas in the edit summaries and elsewhere in the talk. But no one said "that stuff is not wanted in the text" (in fact, some of that stuff was already in the text before the table, and still is right now). So, don't make up conclusions on the basis of others' edits just to pretend that this should lead to a "this stuff is not wanted in the text"-fact that, somehow, and under whay you say about WP:INFOBOX, hints at a discredit for IE's use (specially seeing how ILE itself has garnered little support so far).

I've also become interested in the designs of the Spanish and French wikipedias, but despite attempts in the past from some users to try to implement those here, all attempts ended up bogged down. Yet I actually doubt that it would help here, since the infoboxes in the Spanish and French wikipedias don't tend to include every parliamentary party either, and their design has more resemblances to that of IE (for example, including leaders' pics) than ILE's. The whole case favouring ILE's inclusion is that all parties may fit within it and that it's simpler. The French and Spanish infoboxes allow for much more info to be displayed than what ILE allows. So it'd be all the same even if those were brought into this Wikipedia, at least under the arguments that have been put forward in this talk.

Yeah, we may be sure that there are election articles for all tastes with various designs, but so far as I know, most of those which use an infobox use IE. And where ILE is used, it's mostly in countries with very profound parliamentary fragmentations that see most parties obtaining fairly close results (that's why ILE it's also dubbed "the Israeli-style infobox" by some at times). Yet this article is an unique case of a country using ILE only for a single election... and where fragmentation is actually rare, with clear dominant parties and clear minor ones at every election so far. Impru20 (talk) 16:12, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

I think, and I do not want to sound dismissive of any argument, that a general consensus has been formed in favour of using template:IE rather than template:ILE, and the policy with the most support is the 5% or 5 seats rule (which I disagree with but I can see where it comes from). As far as how we move forward is concerned, I would recommend now limiting the discussion to what parties we include on the infobox (which, to be honest, is best done after the results are known on 8 June), rather than having two parallel arguments. Bondegezou made a list above of all the possible combinations. As far as I am aware, there is a convention that the box should only include the parties listed in the previous election's infobox until polling day, and any changes should be made after in light of the election results. As a result, I propose to use a four-party box (Con, Lab, SNP, LD) until the election and then decide which new parties to include afterwards. Nub Cake ([[User talk:|talk]]) 15:54, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm happy with the 4 party version

Agreed 4 party box looks much better and doesn't allow for arguments or perceived bias on who is or isn't included from the smaller parties. CarlDurose (talk · contribs · count) 14:50 21 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't think that regional parties such as the SNP who are do not stand in enough seats to win the election should be included as the infobox is designed to show possible future governments something which the SNP will never be able to form 23:02, 21 April 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.135.234.255 (talk)

Which parties in infobox

Nub Cake and CuriousCabbage have pushed through the notion that we have sufficient consensus to move to template:IE over template:ILE. I don't really feel we've followed any standard dispute resolution process, but I'm guessing a WP:NORUSH argument isn't going to fly, so I won't edit war the matter.

However, as Nub says, we do have to decide the form of the infobox and what parties go in. The options I've seen suggested so far are:

1. Con, Lab, SNP
2. Con, Lab, SNP, LD
3. Con, Lab, SNP, LD, DUP
4. Con, Lab, SNP, LD, DUP, omit some parties with more seats, UKIP
5. Con, Lab, SNP, LD, DUP, omit some parties with more seats, Green, UKIP
6. Con, Lab, SNP, LD, DUP, Sinn Féin, Plaid Cymru, SDLP, UUP

Nub went for #4 and I've just switched it to #3. #3 is more in line with previous general election infoboxes. #2 would match the 2015 article infobox. I would personally prefer #6. Bondegezou (talk) 16:50, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Just want to clarify: I went for #4 because it had the most consensus in the above discussion. My actual preference, which I have explained with reasons below, would be #1 or #2. Nub Cake (talk) 17:59, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

I switched it to #2 for the time being until the discussion is over. Given that this is the same set up than the one in the 2015 election, I don't think this raises any issues for the time of the discussion (whereas including DUP too could be more controversial).

I don't think this is presented in the right way. You could also name choice #3 as "Con, Lab, SNP, LD, omit parties with 21 times as many votes in previous election, DUP". I don't think either description is neutral, so we should limit opinions to the discussion only and not have them as part of the choices.

Why removing the flag? Seriously, Bondegezou, do you think the 2017 UK election should look special to any other in the world? Flags have been always used for election infoboxes (even articles using ILE (which was the infobox style you yourself argued for) do have them! Check Dutch elections, Israel or Serbia). I see that WP:INFOBOX encourages not using flag icons in the infobox. But it says they "should not", not that they "must not". Red links are also to be avoided and, still, templates everywhere in Wikipedia have them. I'm sure the flag icon issue is a community-wide practice even more settled that having parties sorted by seats in the infobox. And I don't know what you and other user spoke on WP:INFOBOX, but may I remind what you said yesterday about WP:LOCALCONSENSUS? Either you go now an apply that rule strictly to all elections (including those using ILE) or there's no sense at all at having the flag removed. For consistency.

As for the parties, I'd have Con, Lab, SNP and LD as an unnegotiable minimum, given their relevance. Further, the issue comes mostly on whether to include UKIP or not (with those arguing against it defending that, before UKIP, others should be included instead, but not that there was an actual preference for adding these before UKIP was brought into the question). UKIP was indeed relevant in the 2015 election, but I don't think it's so right now. So I'd be more of the opinion of having UKIP in 2015 but not necessarily here. Since this discussion is for the 2017 election, I'd go with #2 I think. Impru20 (talk) 17:28, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

I'll start a separate flag icon discussion.

We have, for years, debated which parties to include in infoboxes. The consensus has always ended up that elections are ultimately about winning seats, so parties should be listed by seats won, and you don't skip over parties with more seats to include those with fewer. This, we all recognise, is simpler when you have proportional representation, but it's always been the endpoint of discussions with FPTP elections too. (There is an issue (as I raised recently) about forthcoming elections versus past elections, but I am presuming that, for the time being, we are making decisions based on the 2015 result and nothing else.)

Every single election article infobox follows this rule... with one exception, that I can't find right now, where the main opposition party in a not-very-democratic election boycotted it (and thus got no votes or seats), but are listed second in the infobox. Bondegezou (talk) 17:38, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, indeed elections are for winning seats. But when you intend to include a party with 0.6% of the vote with a minimal political relevance and leave out another with 12.7% that is consistently appearing in the media, that has been object of analyses on its impact on national politics (and even on Brexit itself), which used to score strong in opinion polls (not now, though), won the 2014 European Parliament election in the UK, used to poll strong in by-elections and obtained the best result in vote share for a third party other than the Liberals/LDs since 1918, then some can argue whether WP:UNDUE would be of place here. Because, be realistic: nowadays, seats matter, but are not the only thing that matters. To say that the DUP was more relevant than UKIP in 2015 (or even here) would be unrealistic (specially seeing the very fact that lots of people clashed back then on whether to include UKIP in the infobox, in the opinion polling tables charts and the such... the DUP and other parties did not spark such interest). If UKIP polled poorly... but it scored a respectable 12.7%, with its only flaw being the FPTP system dumping them.

But I think I'm speaking too much on this, since this'd be mostly for a UKIP inclusion to 2015, not here. Here I think we can all live off with choice #2, because unless some sort of surprise unveils, I don't think UKIP will be relevant any longer (at least according to what opinion polls say), so I'm not bringing up once again a discussion on such a controversial issue. Still, the we-should-only-count-seats-criteria has obviously its flaws, and has been one of the main triggers (if not the main one) of all these similar discussions on this very same issue for the past two/three years. Impru20 (talk) 18:19, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

• Always dislike infobox discussions, but basing it on the 2015 infobox (C,L,SNP,LD) seems logical to me. SocialDem (talk) 17:41, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Agreed. Unlike what's been said above I've never proposed that UKIP be added to the infobox and given their declining poll ratings and minimal chance of winning a single seat, the argument for its inclusion is only going to evaporate further after the election. The '5% or 5 seats rule' was one that gained a lot of support above but I feel this opens the path to a whole load of problems, as well as forcing the inclusion of parties which really have no sufficient national significance whatsoever (e.g. DUP). Unless the Lib Dems make a very strong comeback, I would be inclined to argue against including them too since 8% of the national vote and just 9 out of 650 seats is hardly a significant result either, and its very clear now that the three main parliamentary parties are con, lab and SNP. We shouldn't be afraid of displaying the changing nature of British politics as it is, where LD is no longer the significant political force it once was back in 2010. Nub Cake (talk) 17:58, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Template isnt working

The template has been updated yet its not correctly showing everything, can any one help? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:United_Kingdom_general_election,_2017 --Crazyseiko (talk) 22:09, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Target seats list?

Hey! I would enjoy there being a 'target seats table' of, say, the top 20 constituencies a party is likely to win given the swing needed or all the constituencies they can win until the swing they need to win the seat is greater than X percent, whichever comes first. I think there was something similar done for the Scottish Assembly elections in 2016. I would do it myself, but as a total novice to Wikipedia, I would have no clue how to! You can find BES data for 2015 election results here Cheers! Matt 190417 14:04, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not keen on the idea as "target" seats are not always the same as the seats a party narrowly missed out on winning last time. Maswimelleu (talk) 14:40, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Agreed, "target" is probably inaccurate, but the idea is some representation of marginal seats. Matt 190417 16:19, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Agreed, "target" is probably inaccurate, but the idea is some representation of marginal seats. Matt 190417 16:19, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

That said, there is a precedent for Parties publishing lists of their target seats for the election, from an Opposition Party hoping to reach government or a Government Party hoping to strengthen their majority at the expense of the opposition. Maybe include a target seats table for each Party once their lists have been published? TDK1881 (talk) 13:16, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

This article provides a reliable source for this topic. Bondegezou (talk) 11:34, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Does anyone recall if this was done for 2015? Though I note parties published target seat lists then. SocialDem (talk) 12:14, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

We have in the past (but possibly before 2015??) had articles listing "target seats" based simply on the previous election results, but then with added text in some cases where we've had RS reporting on what seats parties were actually targetting. Bondegezou (talk) 14:03, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Predictions one month before the vote and Final predictions before the vote

Would it be worth while having this again? --Crazyseiko (talk) 14:08, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Voting eligibility

At present, the third bullet point of the 'Voting eligibility' section states 'a British citizen, a Commonwealth citizen (with leave to remain or not requiring it) or a citizen of the Republic of Ireland,'.

I intend to change this back to the original version ('a British, Irish or Commonwealth citizen', which reflected the wording on the Gov.uk webpage which is referenced).

There is a distinction between eligibility to register to vote (which is covered by Section 4 of the Representation of the People Act 1983) and eligibility to vote (covered by Section 1 of the same Act).

According to Section 4(1) of the Act, where a person wishes to be 'registered in the register of parliamentary electors', he/she must, at the time of the application, be a 'qualifying Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of the Republic of Ireland'. A 'qualifying Commonwealth citizen' is defined in Section 4(6) of the Act as a person who has leave or does not require leave to enter or remain in the UK.

In contrast, according to Section 1 of the Act, 'A person is entitled to vote as an elector at a parliamentary election in any constituency if on the date of the poll he ... is either a Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of the Republic of Ireland'. There is no reference to being a 'qualifying Commonwealth citizen'.

Therefore, the eligibility to register to vote and the eligibility to vote in a general election differ slightly. When a Commonwealth citizen registers to vote, he/she must be a qualifying Commonwealth citizen with leave to enter/remain in the UK (or not require such leave). On polling day, a Commonwealth citizen whose name appears on the electoral roll is entitled to vote - it is irrelevant if he/she has leave to enter/remain in the UK (or does not require such leave). Bonus bon (talk) 15:51, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Who wrote this article?

There are a number of problems with the article. Only to address some in the lede: May actually doesn't have to be invited by the Queen to form a new government if she wins the election because she is actually in power. Further, there is a lack of clarity about 'snap' election. Technically, any election called by PMs before the completion of a full five year parliament was a snap election (before FTPA). Then again, this is anticipated to be the last general election before Brexit, true, but there are no citations for that. Who is 'anticipating' that? 49.200.244.106 (talk) 08:21, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

In defense of my fellow editors, this is a genuine "snap election" and thus the article is in confusion and will be until several weeks after it is over. This is unfortunate but necessary. Things change extremely quickly. Arglebargle79 (talk) 10:27, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Are you sure about the whole Queen's invitation thing? Cameron had to go to the Queen and ask to form a government after 2015 despite being in power. Nub Cake (talk) 12:35, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Formally, the government is formed at the Monarch's invitation; it is simply that the Monarch typically invites the leader of the party with the most support in the Commons (I don't think there has been any major exception to this since about the 18th century, including coalition governments in which other parties have supported a particular party, such as the 2010-2015 Parliament under Cameron). May is technically only being elected in her constituency, Corbyn in his, and so on - a Prime Minister does not win a national election directly, but indirectly by virtue of leading the party with the most support in the Commons. It is simply a mix of constitutional convention and pragmatism that the Prime Minister has the greatest majority in the Commons (otherwise it is nearly impossible to get anything done), just as it is convention that the Prime Minister is also an MP (the last Prime Minister who was not an MP during his tenure was Lord Salisbury in 1903). — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 12:59, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Parties and candidates tables

Thanks to various editors who have worked on these to make them look good. Four ideas/questions...

1. Can these be made sortable (by seat count, vote share etc.)? There are concerns above about parties with high vote shares but few seats getting insufficient coverage. Making the tables sortable is a small way in which this issue can be surfaced to the reader.
2. Should we expand these to any other parties? I think the only other parties of note are those that didn't win any Westminster seats in 2015, but do have other significant representation, e.g. in a devolved assembly. This would mean the Scottish Green Party, the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland and Traditional Unionist Voice, I think.
3. Another issue that keeps coming up is party leaders vs. party leaders at Westminster, so Sturgeon leads the SNP, but isn't directly participating in this election, so who is the Westminster leader? That could be added to these tables.
4. Do we want headshots here? The infobox shows 4 party leaders: we could show more here. I'm all for more pictures in the main text. Bondegezou (talk) 15:54, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

• Unhelpfully I'm now concerned that with seat totals and vote shares this is in danger of duplicating the results section, when it is populated... we may have to amend/remove the table on 9 June. Suggest we don't add extra parties/images at present. SocialDem (talk) 17:00, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
  • I take the point about duplication. We can knock out columns fairly easily on 9 June. Bondegezou (talk) 17:09, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

I've made them sortable. We do need to settle on criteria for inclusion. From new edits, we now have a party with no MPs and 1% of the vote included. Options I see: a) include only parties that had at least 1 MP elected last time; b) have any party that ran nationally (just 1 of the 4 UK bits would be enough) last time (i.e. not on a local issue or narrow targeting of constituencies) or will this time; c) include all parties that ran last time or have at least 1 candidate this time. I favour b) for being the best balance of neutrality (not excluding those that got no MPs last time) and detail (not including those that are highly unlikely to have a meaningful impact); we can add a note to say that there are other parties that run non-nationally. Thoughts? EddieHugh (talk) 18:19, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

That all seems reasonably sensible. Notes next to tables are useful. I can live with (b), but one could also do something similar which is include parties that have been elected to significant assemblies (the three devolved assemblies, London) or have significant mayoralties.

The other thing we should do is look out for the OFCOM guidance on who counts as "major parties", that way we're following a solid RS. Bondegezou (talk) 22:14, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

User:Tannlos cut some from the tables, suggesting that convention is to include only those who won a seat in the previous election. Perhaps Tannlos's input on this would be useful... EddieHugh (talk) 22:23, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

The most recent OFCOM guidance -- and I like looking at the OFCOM guidance as an independent reliable source that is actively seeking to answer this question -- I could find is on p. 3 of this, dating to March 2014. That list is Con, Lab and LD + SNP in Scotland + Plaid in Wales + UKIP in some contexts. For Northern Ireland, they give UUP, DUP, SF, SDLP and APNI. That notably excludes the Greens, who did win an MP in 2015, but includes APNI, who didn't. Bondegezou (talk) 22:28, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

If we include parties that didn't win any seats, who's to say we can't include every party that stood in 2015? Obviously that would make an enormous table, so where do you draw the line on who to include and who to omit? There's no reason to include any parties other than those who won seats. OFCOM's guidance doesn't even include Greens, whom it would be daft not to include. Tannlos (talk) 22:35, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Who's to say we can't include every party that stood in 2015? The OFCOM guidance. That's the point: here is a reliable source, independent guide to which parties are significant, one that UK broadcasters have to stick to. You may disagree with them, but reliable sources trump the views of editors by and large when it comes to considering what is worthy of coverage and how much.

We could go with superset of major parties under OFCOM guidance + parties who won seats with 2015, i.e. just adding in APNI. Coverage of NI politics pretty consistently considers the significant parties in NI to be DUP, UUP, SF, SDLP and APNI, even though the UUP and APNI have a spotty record of winning Westminster seats (APNI didn't in 2015, UUP did, but that was reversed in 2010). Bondegezou (talk) 16:26, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

I can get behind Bondegezou's idea of OFCOM plus any other parties that won seats, seems like the best option for a consensus. Tannlos (talk) 20:12, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Campaign - mandates and EU interventions

I think that the following should be included after Campaign:Background for the reasons given below.

Democratic mandates: replacement and renewal

As this is a sovereign parliament, candidates may seek a democratic mandate for any policies by putting them in their manifestos. If the candidate is elected, they receive the mandate and it becomes the will of the people that they pursue the policies.

Previous mandates such as from previous elections and referenda are cancelled, but can be sought again, as above.

Many people seem to think that the mandate from the Brexit referendum will persist after the general election. I think this is objectively wrong. The relevant mandate for a long term policy is that from the most recent vote, whether in an election or a referendum. For example, a mandate could be sought to cancel Trident or the aircraft carriers project. Of course such cancellations could raise compensation issues. These examples are relevant because I do not think that the constitution insists that the result of a referendum can only be reversed by another referendum, especially when that referendum is held to advise parliament. Promises to implement the result were general election manifesto commitments, which will be replaced by those of the current general election.

Regarding consequences of cancellation, in the case of cancelling Brexit it seems that the EU will simply allow it, without insisting on its possible right to make the UK go through Brexit and the standard joining procedure. This is not surprising as it will give the EU a certain political victory now when it needs such, rather than the possibility of a greater and more humiliating victory later if Brexit does not turn out to be a success in the meantime.

I also think that statements from the EU designed to influence Brexit policy could be considered to be part of the campaign.

As always, I will be interested to receive corrections as to substance, objections as to relevance and suggestions as to style, especially from Brexiteers. AuditorGeneral (talk) 16:25, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

What we need are reliable source citations discussing these issues. I've seen some coverage of the matter with respect to May's plans, that an election victory gives her a mandate that means the Lords won't try to block her. AuditorGeneral, do you have some references that discuss the matter in terms of the referendum result, or reversing it? Bondegezou (talk) 20:16, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

It looks like you're trying to find a way to include a political point. That's not what we're here to do – we (should) aim to summarise the topic of the article in an encyclopedic (which includes neutral) way. Your suggested inclusion is generic, so not really worth including. It's also of limited accuracy, as things included in party manifestos are routinely dropped. If it's the specific Brexit matter that you want to bring up, then my initial objection applies. But, as Bondegezou says, find some sources. EddieHugh (talk) 21:33, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree. And besides, while it is indeed the case that any Parliament cannot pass legislation that binds future Parliaments, this says nothing about trends in popular opinion, and the political fiction of the "clear mandate" is well-established as problematic at best - given the breadth of policies in a manifesto, as well as the lack of engagement that many voters have with them, then they can do little but display a party's intentions while campaigning.

More to the point, as Bondegezou and EddieHugh have stated, then if a significant number of sources are reporting something that can be appropriately and encyclopaedically summarised, then by all means go ahead. Otherwise it risks adding little to an article that can easily balloon as it is. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 00:10, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Government majority incorrect?

Surely if we are going by the definition listed in the article,

The actual government majority is calculated as Conservative MPs less all other parties. This calculation excludes the Speaker, Deputy Speakers (two Labour and one Conservative) and Sinn Féin (who follow a policy of abstentionism).

then we should have the government majority listed as 17 (329-227-54-9-8-5-3-3-2-1=17). The only reasonable explanation I can think of to keep it as 16 is that we should subtract the vacant seat from the government majority, but considering Sinn Féin isn't because of their policy of abstentionism, why should an empty seat count against the majority? --UpperJeans (talk) 01:19, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

That was an oversight. The table was copied in from Template:British House of Commons composition. When I updated that template, I forgot to update the majority. The error was then copied into this article. -Rrius (talk) 19:51, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Prorogation date discrepancy

Parliament was prorogued to Tuesday, 2 May, but according to all of our sources and my own calculation, Parliament won't dissolve by operation of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 until 3 May. In 2015, Parliament was prorogued to 30 March, which was also the day Parliament dissolved. This would seem to suggest that either Parliament is technically set to come back on 2 May or that officials have determined 2 May is the actual date of dissolution. -Rrius (talk) 20:28, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Organisation of 'Issues'

I think sub-headings would add clarity and help to structure the various 'narratives' that will inevitably develop during the course of the campaign. I would also like to see more analysis of what the politicians are saying about other important issues s.a. the environment, housing, etc. I have suggested some headings for the existing text, but feel sure these will be edited further :-) Roy Bateman (talk) 10:11, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

As the section expands, I'd be all in favour of sub-headings. Bondegezou (talk) 11:06, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

This feels excessive to do right now, until more obvious themes become evident over the course of the campaign. Particularly now when these issues are currently a paragraph each. Open to this in a week or so -- maybe we could discuss such a change here? SocialDem (talk) 18:01, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

OK - I have downgraded to highlighted headings (as originally) - but I think we need more content and focus on the issues (rather than 'personalities' as above) - and need to provide some structure at an early stage. I would expect Brexit and its potential impact on the economy and UK constitution, to develop considerably over the coming week Roy Bateman (talk) 20:14, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Parties

Party/alliance		Party leader(s)	Leader since	Leader's seat	Last election
					%	Seats
	Conservative Party	Theresa May	July 2016	Maidenhead	36.8%	330
	Labour Party	Jeremy Corbyn	September 2015	Islington North	30.4%	232
	Scottish National Party	Nicola Sturgeon	November 2014	None	4.7%	56
	Liberal Democrats	Tim Farron	July 2015	Westmorland and Lonsdale	7.9%	8
	Plaid Cymru	Leanne Wood	March 2012	None	0.6%	3
	UK Independence Party	Paul Nuttall	November 2016	None	12.7%	1
	Green Party of England and Wales	Caroline Lucas Jonathan Bartley	September 2016	Brighton Pavilion None	3.8%	1
	Scottish Green Party	Patrick Harvie Jonathan Bartley	November 2013	None None	1.3%	0

Party/alliance		Leader(s)	Leader since	Leader's seat	Last election
					%	Seats
	Democratic Unionist Party	Arlene Foster	December 2015	None	25.7%	8
	Sinn Féin	Gerry Adams	November 1983	None	24.5%	4
	Social Democratic and Labour Party	Colum Eastwood	November 2015	None	13.9%	3
	Ulster Unionist Party	Robin Swann	April 2017	None	16.0%	2
	Alliance Party of Northern Ireland	Naomi Long	October 2016	None	8.6%	0
	Traditional Unionist Voice	Jim Allister	December 2007	None	2.3%	0
	Green Party in Northern Ireland	Steven Agnew	January 2011	None	1.0%	0

Why can't the parties table on this list can be the same as this? I think they should.Mr Hall of England (talk) 19:27, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Because we've already had a discussion about this in Parties and candidates tables. OFCOM's most recent guidance (here) on who can be classed as a major party consists of Con, Lab, LD, UKIP, plus NI parties DUP, SF, SDLP, UUP, Alliance. We thought it would be best to include OFCOM parties and any other parties that have seats in Westminster. -- Tannlos (talk) 19:38, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Past House of Commons bar

Tannlos and Areat are disputing the bar showing the composition in the last Parliament. I agree there is a problem: on my iPad, the little arrow showing the point of majority displays in the wrong place, and I think Areat's edit helps there. But this may depend on display type. Bondegezou (talk) 20:31, 1 May 2017 (UTC)